Urban News

The Hindu       26.11.2010

CMDA's first multilevel parking facility planned in T. Nagar bus stand

— Photo: S.S. Kumar

The T. Nagar bus terminus, where the multilevel parking facility will be established.

CHENNAI: The first multilevel vehicle parking facility of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in joint venture with Metropolitan Transport Corporation will come up in T.Nagar bus terminus.

The decision was taken at a meeting organised by the CMDA with the Transport Department here on Thursday. This is part of the CMDA's initiative of setting up multilevel vehicle parking facilities in joint venture with various land-owning government departments.

The CMDA would opt for the model proposed by the report of Mecon Limited, a Government of India enterprise, which was hired to prepare a feasibility report for developing multilevel car parking complexes at six locations a few years ago.

“This will be a revenue-sharing model to mitigate the problems of parking. All have fallen in place after four years,” CMDA Chairperson Susan Mathew told The Hindu.

The total area of the terminus is around 1.5 acre.

The facility would be developed by the CMDA without disturbing the bus terminus. The four floors of parking space would house 472 cars and have four elevators for lifting the vehicles. A one-way ramp would also be provided for use during mechanical failure of elevators or during power failure.

The total area of the parking lot would be 17,320 sq m – 4,330 sq m per floor. The parking lot design is subject to changes if the update proposed by the CMDA finds any major modifications in the traffic volume in the T.Nagar area.

The project would be executed in 18 months after the pre-contract work is completed in six months.

The Deccan Chronicle  16.11.2010

Chennai, Nov. 15: Korattur residents who have put up with crowded railway level-crossings for several years can now heave a sigh of relief with the Ambattur municipality giving the go-ahead for the construction of a new subway there.

But, on the other hand, the petition of Korattur’s neighbourhood locality, Ambattur, is yet to find any official support.

When contacted, Ambattur municipal commissioner Ashish Kumar said. “The Ambattur level crossing at Karukku (LC6) is still in the planning stage. We will be giving the Korattur (LC4) subway a no-objection certificate soon, but no such project is being executed at Karukku.”

“During peak hours, it takes nearly 30-45 minutes to cross the tracks. And the traffic jam develops into a 1-km-long jam. This is not a new problem. The authorities should have taken up a project to construct a subway here long ago,” says Mr Raja Babu, who commutes from Ambattur to Guindy every day.

Not only commuters, but also Lok Sabha MP T.K.S. Elangovan had raised the demand for two subways in Ambattur and Korattur during the 2010 budget session of Parliament.

“We have inspected the Karukku level-crossing area. Railway over bridges (ROB) are there on both sides of the level-crossing, but pedestrians rarely use the ROBs. So we are also planning to construct a subway there which can also be used by two-wheelers,” said Mr S. Anantharaman, divisional railway manager (Chennai).

He agrees that constructing an underpass/subway at railway crossings will ease traffic and surely reduce the threat of freak mishaps. “It cannot happen overnight. We will moot the proposal next year and hopefully execute it in 2011-2012,” he adds.